


Too Much of Water

by Chemicallywrit



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bastardizing Shakespeare, F/F, Gen, Hamlet AU - Freeform, can someone drive herself mad trying to write everything in iambic pentameter, we're about to find out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chemicallywrit/pseuds/Chemicallywrit
Summary: As the Equalists try to take Republic City, Hiroshi Sato goes turncoat again, this time for the love of his daughter. But the Equalists take Asami captive for revenge, and Mako and Korra must rescue her. Korra unlocks her airbending, full of rage at the kidnapping of her friend. And things go horribly, horribly wrong.We rejoin our heroes after the events of season one. The Earth Kingdom wages war, spearheaded by General Kuvira, a woman plucked from Zaofu for her military prowess and turned power-hungry by the earth queen. The water tribes are united...but at what cost?AKA that one time I rewrote all of Hamlet because it fit just a little too well.





	1. Act I: Scene I

Pre-dawn darkness on the new wall around the Southern Water Tribe. Wei crouches, rubbing his hands together, his breath making clouds against the black sky. He looks up, startled.

WEI: Who’s there?

WING: Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself.

WEI: (standing) Long live the Avatar!

WING: Brother?

WEI: Aye. Come you to relieve me? ‘Tis bitter cold. 

WING: We are upon a wall at night in the South Pole.

WEI: No need for sarcasm.

WING: I come to send you in. Bolin will be here shortly.

WEI: Good. It has been dull.

WING: No ghost, then?

WEI: Nay.

(The brothers trade a knowing glance. Wei shivers, spooked.)

WEI: What’s that, there? Ho! Show yourself! (Metalbends two ribbons from his wrists.)

BOLIN: A friend! Best friend of the avatar. Don’t shoot!

(Enter Bolin.)

WEI: Bolin? Ah, yes, well met. (The ribbons tie themselves back around his wrists.)

WING: No ghost tonight, Bolin.

BOLIN: Don’t talk of ghosts at night, not now.

WING: Bolin does not believe me when I tell him of the apparition, which we have seen twice these nights. I told him he should join us on the guard that if we see the spirit, he may stand testimony for us. You see, people don’t believe us.

WEI: What, us?

BOLIN: Shut up. There is no spirit.

WING: It might appear at any second.

WEI: As it did the two nights past.

WING: The stars looked just like this.

WEI: Wing and I stood on this chill’d wall…

WING: And out of nowhere it appeared…

(Enter Ghost.)

WEI: Like that!

BOLIN: (Screams)

WING: Leave off, sir, it will spook and go!

BOLIN: I want it to go!

WEI: It comes again!

WING: Speak to it, Bolin. You are friend to the Avatar.

BOLIN: I will not speak to it! Although…

WEI: Hark, it looks to you!

BOLIN: …Although his face is known to me…

WING: Question it, Bolin.

BOLIN: What are thou that that usurp’st this time of night with that visage that yet slips through my memory? I say, I have seen thee in linograph! Art thou not sire much belov’d of my friend Korra? By worlds of flesh and spirit, I charge thee, speak!

(Exit ghost)

WING: It is offended, Bolin. Bolin? Are you all right? You tremble and look pale.

WEI: Did we not tell you it was so?

BOLIN: I might not have believed it but for touching it with my own eyes.

WING: You said it was the father of the Avatar?

BOLIN: Sure as you are both yourselves, and in the armor that clothed him while he late fought the ruthless queen of Earth.

WEI: Thrice cursed her name!

WING: May the destroyer of Zaofu never rest in peace. (spits)

WEI: How was she killed, Bolin? What was her end?

BOLIN: It was Katara’s doing, the sage of old. They battled for the edges of the continent and bold Katara caught her on the seaside, and drowned her on dry land.

WING: And well she did, though now her protégé makes trouble.

BOLIN: This is the general Kuvira?

WEI: Aye. We knew her once, when young. My mother would have called her daughter, were she not torn away by Queen of Earth.

WING: More’s the pity. Much sweeter, she could be, if only she had called Zaofu her home.

BOLIN: Which is the reason for this wall, correct? It is not old.

WEI: Forsooth, it was built last fortnight by Chief Unalaq.

WING: A good man, is Unalaq. Uniter of North and South against the general terrible. It is lucky he was here when tragedy struck Tonraq. He has welcomed us here as guests, most graciously.

BOLIN: This ghost bodes ill for wartime.

WEI: Surely this you cannot know?

BOLIN: Never trust a portent, lads. (Enter ghost.) But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again! I shall speak to it, for Korra’s sake, though I shall be well armed. (Stretches out his arms to bend; bends a rock from one side of the wall.) If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, speak to me!

(The ghost spreads its arms.)

BOLIN: Please! For your daughter’s sake. If there be any good thing to be done, that may to thee do ease and grace, but name it! If thou art privy to thy country’s fate, which happily foreknowing may avoid, O speak! If thou has uphoarded thy life, extorted treasure in the spirit world, for which, they say, you spirits often walk in death—

(Somewhere far off, an arctic hen crows.)

BOLIN: —please speak of it—no! Come back!

(Wei and Wing bend metal to tie it up, but the ribbons of iron pass through it. Bolin drops the rock into its path, but the ghost melts through and evaporates.)

WEI: ‘Tis gone! If Chief Tonraq it was, we do it wrong to try and bind it.

WING: It is all vain anyway. It is invulnerable.

BOLIN: It would have spoke, but for the crow of dawn. May spirits keep their form in light of day?

WEI: I have heard story of the Avatar last, who traded blows with spirits only visible at night.

BOLIN: So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But look, the morn in russet mantle clad walks o’er the dune of yon—er—is that the east?

WING: ‘Tis likely north. This is the pole.

BOLIN: ‘Tis naught. Our watch is through, and by my thought, I shall impart what we have seen tonight unto Korra, for, upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to her.

WING: Do it, pray. ‘Tis right that she should know.

WEI: Go on, but I will not join you. My bed calls me.


	2. Act I: Scene II

(Korra’s home. It is round, warm, and comfortable. Many people sit in a circle, the focus of which is Senna and Unalaq. Beside Unalaq sits Hiroshi Sato, who sits next to Bolin and Mako, who sit next to Asami. Next to Asami, Korra is hunched over. She looks drained. Mako fidgets with his fingers, as if expecting flame, but producing nothing. Bolin watches his brother closely. A few others complete the circle, including Katara and one of the Earth Kingdom exiles.)

UNALAQ: Of Tonraq my dear brother’s death the memory be green, and I am befitted to bear my heart in grief and our whole kingdom contracted in one brow of woe. But we must live. Therefore my sometime sister, now my wife, imperial jointress of this war-torn state, have made a choice for love of people as much as love of man. My only hope is to do right by Tonraq’s people, now mine.

(The people in the circle seem pleased by this, especially Hiroshi and including Mako. Korra does not move. Asami glances from her father to Korra, unsure.)

UNALAQ: Now follows that you know young Kuvira, holding a weak supposal of our worth, or thinking by our late dear brother’s death our state to be disjoint and out of frame, colleague with this dream of her advantage. She hath not failed to pester us with message, importing the surrender of those lands lost by the late queen to our doughty brother. So much for that. Now for ourselves and this time of meeting. Thus much the business is: we have here writ to Wu, the nephew of the old Earth Queen, who, young and, if rumor true, a fool, does not know of his general’s aim. We pled him to suppress her actions here in our fair south; and we here dispatch you, Katara, wisest of our number, and Opal of Zaofu, for bearing of this greeting to young Wu. Farewell and let your haste commend your duty.

KATARA: In that and all things we will show our duty.

OPAL: It will be good to be near home.

UNALAQ: I doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.

(Katara and Opal exit.)

UNALAQ: And now—Mako, is it? You wished to make a brief proposal? Why here and now and not to your friends only?

MAKO: My friends are well aware, Chief Unalaq.

(Korra stands and turns away, arms folded, to face the wall. Asami reaches for her, but does not follow, looking from Mako to Korra.)

UNALAQ: Very well, then speak your piece.

MAKO: If it sits well with you, sir, back to Republic City I will go, from whence I came to seek the healing of Katara and to aid my grieving…friend.

(Korra laughs at the wall, without humor.)

UNALAQ: You will not stay?

MAKO: I cannot.

UNALAQ: Have you your brother’s leave? Or will he along?

BOLIN: (choking up) He knows that which he needs. I stay to help, if it is no presumption.

UNALAQ: Then at thy leisure, Mako; time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will. But now, my daughter Korra, and my niece—

KORRA: (Aside) A little more than kin, and less than kind.

UNALAQ: How is it that the clouds still hang upon you?

KORRA: (She turns, slowly.) What can you mean? I am a ray of sunshine.

SENNA: My dearest, we need you now more than before. The avatar must be our bridge, bending or none. All that lives must die; let go your father’s spirit to his rest.

KORRA: How can you—no.

SENNA: What ails you?

KORRA: Me? Oh, nothing much. But it seems strange that I see no funeral dress, no grievous hangings in this house nor grimace of pain upon the faces of…those who might be troubled, mother. Strange to a creature newly powerless that things should be not as they seem.

UNALAQ: I see your sensitivity to spirit’s matters is no better than before you left. ‘Tis sweet and worthy, Korra, to give proper mourning to your father, but as Avatar you must know that all things pass in their due time. To refuse movement forward is to throw off balance in this world. It shows a stubborn heart and inflexibility to change.

KORRA: As Avatar, I must know this? An Avatar who cannot bend?

UNALAQ: Change will come, and other forces will fill the gap. You must move on.

KORRA: Move on from destiny?

UNALAQ: I will not argue with you. Your authority carries a much farther reach.

KORRA: Oh yes, my grand authority. I shall take it to Republic City and become a secretary.

SENNA: Let not your mother lose her only child, Korra. I pray thee, stay with us.

(Korra is on the edge of losing her temper, but something about her mother’s voice and manner checks her reaction. She takes a deep breath and grits her teeth.)

KORRA: I shall in all my best obey you, mother.

UNALAQ: ‘Tis a loving and a fair reply, and I am glad to hear of it. Come, Senna, we must plan for further war. And thank you all.

(Exit all but Korra, Bolin, and Asami. Mako brushes past, attempting to be stoic.)

ASAMI: (standing and approaching Korra) Korra? Are you…

KORRA: Would that we never Amon’s plans dismantled.

ASAMI: No, don’t say—

KORRA: Mako would not lack his bending. I would still be avatar.

ASAMI: You are still avatar.

KORRA: Mako and I might…

ASAMI: (places a hand on her shoulder) You have righted an imbalance, and this without your bending. If that carries not the import of the avatar, I cannot say what does.

(Korra turns to face Asami, reaching up to brushing a lock of hair out of her face and gently running her fingers down her cheek.)

KORRA: Asami…

ASAMI: What do you mean by this?

KORRA: I mean that…Oh, I know not.

(Korra draws back her hand. Asami looks down, markedly disappointed.)

ASAMI: Good day, Korra. (Exit)

BOLIN: Korra, I would speak with you.

KORRA: (Not listening. She clenches her fist as if to punch, but presses it to her mouth instead.) Oh, that this flesh I hold would melt, thaw, and dissolve, to follow paths only spirits know. Would that I could go now to see my father.

BOLIN: Speak not this way. You cause me disquiet.

KORRA: Disquiet. Yes. That is all that’s left. Empty, hollow, stale disquiet. So good a chief, so good a father, married to a faultless, faithful wife. Must I remember? They were babes in love even as I watched years pass, and yet, within a month, a new betrothal necklace. A ming snake would have mourned for longer! My father’s brother, but no more like to him than I to Aang. It is not nor can it come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

BOLIN: You need not; if a friendly ear is something you require—

KORRA: What news, Bolin? 

BOLIN: Do not dismiss my asking. I care for you, my friend.

KORRA: Why would you stay?

BOLIN: I am a rebel, as are we all.

KORRA: (cracking the barest, smallest smile) You are no rebel, but friend you are indeed, and goodly so, for I am glad to have you. Methinks I see my father.

BOLIN: Where, Korra?

KORRA: In my mind’s eye, Bolin.

BOLIN: Just and good he must have been, to hear you talk of him.

KORRA: He was a man, good and bad, but a great chief. None can compare.

BOLIN: I think I saw him also.

KORRA: Saw? Who?

BOLIN: Tonraq, the chief. Your father.

KORRA: The chief my father!

BOLIN: I do not dare to mock you. I beg you listen.

KORRA: Haste to tell, Bolin, for should your tale prove worthy, I would see him too.


	3. Act I: Scene III

(A barn, in which is housed a boat with a motor and a couple of camel yaks. Asami works on the boat, covered with grease, elbow deep in mechanism. The camel yaks grumble occasionally. Mako enters, dressed for travel.)

MAKO: Friend Asami? My things are packed, and so I thought to say goodbye.

ASAMI: Have you spared such thought for Korra?

MAKO: I prithee, do not go there with me now.

(They are both silent for a moment. Asami hasn’t looked up once.)

MAKO: Do write to me, Asami.

ASAMI: What shall I write of?

MAKO: Anyone but Korra.

ASAMI: I thought that you had loved her.

MAKO: For Korra and the trifling of her favor, hold it fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute. No more.

ASAMI: She never toyed with you.

MAKO: Did she not?

ASAMI: To abandon her when she has need of friends—

MAKO: She needeth not my presence to remind her of a lack of bending now.

ASAMI: You are angry.

MAKO: Yes, but not at her. I miss the smoke and fire in my blood and stomach. I miss the warmth I kept in even dismal weather such as this. So frigid is the world! I never knew.

ASAMI: I will write you.

MAKO: I thank thee.

ASAMI: Mako, may I beg advice?

MAKO: I suppose.

ASAMI: When Korra made affections for you known, what did she do?

MAKO: Are you still consumed by green-eyed envy? I beg thee, do not trifle with me.

ASAMI: Nothing of the sort. It is a question only.

MAKO: Korra told me simply.

ASAMI: No mystery or vague flirtation?

MAKO: Our friend is never vague.

ASAMI: And yet I fear—

MAKO: Fear what?

ASAMI: You remember when she broke the wall between her and airbending? After my father tried to quit Amon, and I was taken hostage? When she saved me?

MAKO: I remember.

ASAMI: Afterward, she said she could not bear to lose me. She said we’d talk, but then she went with you, and Amon caught you both and took—

MAKO: If you would come around to the point.

ASAMI: A backward glance, a misplaced hand, a longing look. I have suspicions but no iron fact. I think she loves me.

MAKO: What?

ASAMI: You heard me fully well.

MAKO: Never had I ever thought—but are you sure?

ASAMI: No, and there’s the rub.

MAKO: You?

ASAMI: Now who is green with envy?

MAKO: You must reject her then.

ASAMI: What for?

MAKO: Korra has been victim to so much that any change should be suspicious! For nature crescent does not grow alone in thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes, the inward service of the mind and soul grows withal. Perhaps she loves you now, and now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of her will, but you must fear. She is avatar, and her will is not her own, and now with all she goes through, you have naught to stand on but vagaries. 

ASAMI: Is she so flighty?

MAKO: By my thought yes. These hints you find—fear them, Asami, fear them and reject her. (chuckles) It is not as though her feelings are returned. 

ASAMI: You are very certain.

MAKO: You mean to say—

ASAMI: I make no promise of my heart, and take your counsel with a grain of salt.

MAKO: Whatever for?

ASAMI: You advise rejection outright, spare my feelings and be safe. But Mako, have you ever told a person no when you were waylaid by affection?

MAKO: That is low.

(Enter Hiroshi.)

MAKO: Ah, here’s your father. If you should listen not to me, then perhaps his words will strike you wise. Ask him. 

HIROSHI: Yet here, young Mako? Thine ship will leave without thee! And yet I’m gladdened. In the past few weeks I find in thee a ready lad, a hearty soul.

MAKO: (surprised and pleased) Really, sir?

HIROSHI: A bit of me I see in thee, ready to pull thyself up out of trouble. It was thy gentle nature that first gave me thought of leaving Amon’s service. I wish thee all the best in finding peace, lad, without bending. Remember, though: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, bending or no bending, thou canst not then be false to any man. (shakes his hand) Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

MAKO: Humbled I by such attention; thank you sir. Farewell, Asami; and remember well what I have said to you.

ASAMI: ‘Tis in my memory locked, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

MAKO: Goodbye. (Exit)

HIROSHI: What is ‘t, Asami, he hath said to you? (He joins her on the boat, handing her tools as she needs them.)

ASAMI: Nothing worth the listening. 

HIROSHI: Why such hostility? I knew that you two loved no longer, but to mine eyes you seemed like friends.

ASAMI: We are, or were. Methinks his feelings be much muddled, some for me and some for Korra.

HIROSHI: And your feelings?

ASAMI: Lie with someone else these days.

HIROSHI: Will you share with your old father?

ASAMI: The avatar is a striking figure, don’t you think?

HIROSHI: The avatar!

ASAMI: She hath of late made many tenders of her affection to me.

HIROSHI: Affection? Why, this is well!

ASAMI: (surprised) Well you think it?

HIROSHI: By all means you ought to endear yourself more closely. 

ASAMI: What is this counsel?

HIROSHI: My dear, you know I am not trusted full, and for reasons real and good. My business with the Equalists hath left me marked a traitor, though I was traitor once again to their foul cause. But should my daughter be beloved of the avatar, there is a chance that I should do some good again.

ASAMI: Mako thinks I should reject her, for fear of unsound mind.

HIROSHI: What, hers? Nay, does she not need you now more than before?

(Asami looks her father in the eye. He hands her a wrench with a smile. Asami takes it, but she is unsure, and unsettled.)


	4. Act I: Scene IV

(On the wall again, and dark. Enter Korra, Bolin, Wei, and Wing.)

BOLIN: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

KORRA: It is the South Pole, friend.

WING: (To Wei) Did I not tell you so?

KORRA: What hour now?

BOLIN: I think it lacks of twelve.

WEI: No, it is past, near time for me to go inside.

BOLIN: Indeed? It then draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. (A blast of music from the village.) What’s that!

KORRA: The festival of equinox begins. The chief doth wake tonight and takes his rouse with village men. They shall not sleep until they see both day and night be equal.

BOLIN: Is it a custom?

KORRA: Ay, marry, is it: but to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honor’d in the breach than the observance. It does not seem appropriate in time of war to revel like this.

BOLIN: Everyone ought sometime party, even during war.

KORRA: Tell that to the Earth Kingdom.

(Enter Ghost)

BOLIN: Look, my friend, it comes!

KORRA: Spirits of past avatars defend us! Be thou a spirit pleasant or corrupted, bring with thee airs from spirit world afar, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou com’st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Tonraq, chief of Southern Water Tribe, father! O answer me: why did the spirit world refuse to take thee, but spit thee back upon this icy world in disarray left by your passing? Say, why is this? What do we do?

(The ghost extends a hand and gestures for Korra to follow it farther along the wall.)

BOLIN: It beckons you to go away with it, as if it some impartment did desire to you alone.

WING: Look, with what courteous action it waves you to a more removed ground: but do not go with it.

WEI: No, by no means. Not without our presence.

KORRA: He will not speak, so I must follow him.

BOLIN: Korra, no.

KORRA: Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; And for my soul, what can it do to that, being spirit immaterial? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

BOLIN: What if he is Koh, the thief of faces, in disguise? What if it tempt you toward the frozen sea, or to the dreadful edge of glacier cold? All he would have to do is trick you into stepping off the wall, my friend.

KORRA: I shall be fine; I am the avatar.

BOLIN: You cannot bend.

KORRA: (Frowns. Bolin has gone too far.) He waves me still. I’m coming, dad.

(Bolin gestures silently to Korra, pleading with Wei and Wing to do something. They misunderstand, and try to grab her arms.)

KORRA: Hold off your hands! (struggles)

WEI: Korra, you will stay!

WING: Be ruled! You shall not go!

KORRA: Unhand me now! (Lifts Wei bodily off the ground, flips him to the floor. Wing is similarly flung into Bolin.) By my name as avatar, I’ll make a spirit of he that stops me now. I come, father!

(Exit ghost and Korra. Wei groans from his prone position. Wing and Bolin only just manage to untangle.)

BOLIN: She waxes desperate with imagination.

WING: (helps his brother to his feet) Let’s follow; we cannot obey her, avatar or no, when she’s like this.

WEI: And then we’ll thank her for the nap just now. (groans)

BOLIN: Are you sure? I cannot think she will appreciate—oh, have after. To what issue will this come?

WING: Something is rotten in the Southern Water Tribe.

BOLIN: Maybe it will all work out.

WEI: Let’s follow her.


	5. Act I: Scene V

(Korra finds herself at the end of the wall. It is still unfinished; scaffolding and a few tools lay abandoned about the edge. The ghost hovers just past it, in empty space.)

KORRA: Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak; I’ll go no further.

GHOST: Mark me.

KORRA: I will.

GHOST: My hour is almost come, when I to darkness and to danger in the spirit world must render up myself.

KORRA: Danger in the spirit world?

GHOST: Something is not right there; I know not what it is. But lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

KORRA: Speak; I am bound to hear.

GHOST: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

KORRA: What?

GHOST: I am thy father’s spirit, doomed to lack of rest in a spirit world gone too far wrong. Spirits have turned dark and wicked. I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and pulled back locks to part, and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful boar-q-pine. But this is off the point. List, list, oh list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

KORRA: (On the verge of tears) Father!

GHOST: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

KORRA: Murder!

GHOST: Murder most foul, as best it is; but this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

KORRA: Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge. (She will not cry now. She is angry.)

GHOST: I find thee apt, though duller than a sea sponge thou shouldst be, wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Korra, hear: Tis given out that I had sprained a wrist, and a shark did claim to heal it. The shark would bend his water for to heal, as has Katara done in past, but each healing had me feeling more vacant than the frozen tundra. He stole it from me, Korra, all my life, bit by bit; but know, my mighty daughter, the shark that stole thy father’s life now wears his crown.

KORRA: I knew something was wrong; my uncle, Unalaq?

GHOST: Aye, that incestuous, that adulterate beast. O Korra, what a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decide upon a wretch who stole her husband’s life from underneath her nose! And he cares not for her, mark me. He wanted water tribes united under him. It is not she he wanted. But soft! Methinks I scent the morning air. Brief let me be. Unalaq has learned the art of bending spirit, like Aang, the avatar of old. Within a week he stole all of my life like Amon had before stole bending. And now, I live among the spirits and hear whispers that he walks among them, dealing with the darkness.

KORRA: O horrible! Most horrible!

GHOST: If thou has nature in thee, bear it not. Let not the water tribe be known for sharks who thieve a wife and eat a life and cause the spirits strife. But howsomever thou pursu’st this act, taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught. Even if her choice is error-fraught, it is her choice. And be thou careful of thy reputation! The world still needs its avatar. Fare thee well at once! Adieu, remember me! (Fade away, quickly)

KORRA: No, father, not quite yet! What else? I cannot stand—no, hold, hold, my heart. And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory, I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all bending forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there; and thy commandment all alone shall live. Within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter: yes, by heaven! Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain! Sharks may smile also. (looks with longing at where the ghost disappeared) Now to my word. It is ‘Adieu, remember me.’ I have sworn it.

(Bolin, Wing, and Wei enter and approach cautiously, looking for the ghost.)

WEI: Avatar Korra?

BOLIN: Is she all right?

KORRA: (shouting at the place where her father was) So be it!

BOLIN: Ho, Korra?

KORRA: Bolin! What ho, Bolin? Come, friend, come. (She smiles, for the first time in a long time, but her eyes are a little too wide.)

WEI: What happened, Korra?

BOLIN: What news, my friend?

KORRA: Oh, wonderful!

WING: Pray, what did the spirit say?

KORRA: Nay, you will reveal it.

BOLIN: I never would.

WEI AND WING: Nor I, avatar.

KORRA: What would you think? But you’ll be secret?

BOLIN: C’mon Korra, this is me.

KORRA: And them?

BOLIN: We’ll drive them off.

WEI: Not fair to leave us in suspense! We have to know.

KORRA: Aha. The refugees from Zaofu. But would they silence keep? How much earth does the kindness of a southern neighbor hold?

BOLIN: I hope they need no ghost to recommend they choose the right above the wrong. 

KORRA: Why, right; you are in the right; and so without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part, and for my own poor part, I’ll try to meditate.

BOLIN: Your words remind me of when Meelo tries to airbend, Korra.

KORRA: Sorry. (She’s not sorry. She’s _buoyant_.)

BOLIN: What for?

KORRA: For much, Bolin, so much. Much offense was given here. Not much by me, though. And now, good friends, as you are men and benders, sons of earth kingdom, grant me one poor request.

BOLIN: Of course.

KORRA: Never make known what you have seen tonight.

WING: No one believes us anyway.

KORRA: Nay, but swear it. 

BOLIN: In faith, my friend, not I.

KORRA: In the name of avatars past.

BOLIN: We have sworn already, Korra.

KORRA: Upon the lives I led in past, I insist.

(The wall shakes with the voice of Tonraq.)

GHOST: Swear by Aang!

(The boys go pale. Korra laughs.)

KORRA: Did you hear? They do say father knows best. Now swear.

BOLIN: (voice shaking) Propose the oath.

KORRA: Never to speak of this that you have seen. Swear by my lives.

GHOST: (louder) Swear by Roku!

KORRA: Hark, he _will_ shake the wall. Fix your footing, lads, and lay your hands that bend the earth upon mine that bending lack. Again, swear by my lives. Here, bend us a rock to tie it.

BOLIN: (He bends a fist-sized rock from the wall, hands it to Korra. His hands tremble.) Korra, this is wondrous strange.

KORRA: (places her hands around both the rock and Bolin’s hand) Stranger things in this world and the next I wager, friend. Come, brothers. Here. (gestures Wei and Wing over; they place their hands with hers) Now. No excuses. No vague phrases. You will say nothing that I tell. This do swear, upon my name and history as avatar, so I and them behind me help you at your greatest need.

GHOST: (thunderously loud) Swear by Kyoshi!

BOLIN, WEI, WING: I swear!!

(It all goes quiet and still. Korra is satisfied. She shakes off their hands and throws the rock away.

KORRA: Rest, perturbed spirit. So gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, for whatever I am worth. You’ll have my loyalty, at least, so long as you have fingers on your lips. (Some of her manic energy slips away. Her smile drops.) This world is out of joint. O cursed spite, that I was avatar, so bound to set it right. Nay, come, let’s go together.

(Exit Wei and Wing. Korra grabs Bolin’s shoulder.)

KORRA: I have an idea, but I think I’ll need thy help.

BOLIN: I was and always will be at your service, Avatar.

(Exit all.)


End file.
